Writing to the rhythm

I’m one of those people who listens to music as they write. For me, I find that it engages the part of my brain that’s constantly twiddling its thumbs, restless and wanting to drag the rest of me away from whatever I’m concentrating on. With music, that part of my brain is mollified and the rest of it can get work done. I find it particularly useful if I listen to the same song on repeat. That way it is all the easier to detach my conscious mind from the familiar tune and rhythm and words. So far this month my songs on repeat have included Sufjan Steven’s “The Only Thing,” The National’s “I Need My Girl,” and Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” Right now, the song playing on repeat is Shawn Mendes with “Stitches”:

I love this song. And I dance around while I’m writing. It gets me funny looks at Starbucks, but it makes me happy.

Here’s a passage from today’s Nano:

In Tom’s estimation, God had a lot to answer for. So the idea of faith in God was sort of contradictory: either he had no faith in god and everything that had happened to him was totally random, answerable by nobody, or he had faith, and that God he had faith in had either made this happen, or allowed it to happen. Either way, it was a lose-lose proposition.

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Published by eileenmaksym

Eileen Maksym studied philosophy at Yale and theology at Boston College, and now uses both to write science fiction. Currently she is an academic nomad, following her astrophysicist husband around the world, two kids in tow. When not writing or kid wrangling, Eileen is a hopeless fangirl. She can be found on Twitter (@eileenmaksym) squeeing over her favorite shows, most of which involve famous detectives, dashing time travelers, and creatures that are never, ever referred to as zombies.
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